Taipei prosecutors find no secret agenda in ‘Dreamers’

NO CASE:The Council for Cultural Affairs did not violate the law by not holding an open tender for the NT$215m musical, or picking Stan Lai’s group

By Rich Chang and Chris Wang / Staff reporters

Former Council for Cultural Affairs minister Emile Sheng talks to reporters yesterday after the Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office said it had found no evidence of corruption in relation to the musical “Dreamers” performed in October last year.

Photo: Liu Hsin-de, Taipei Times

The Taipei District Prosecutors’ Office yesterday closed its investigation into the bidding process of the centennial musical Dreamers (夢想家), and said that no irregularities were involved.

The Democratic Progressive Party (DPP) filed lawsuits in November last year against President Ma Ying-jeou (馬英九), then-premier Wu Den-yih (吳敦義) and former Council for Cultural Affairs minister Emile Sheng (盛治仁), accusing them of allowing certain performance companies and individuals to profit from staging the musical to celebrate the 100th anniversary of the Republic of China.

The two-night production was put on as part of the centennial celebrations in October last year, but drew harsh criticism for its NT$215 million (US$7.15 million) price tag.

Rather than holding a tender for the production, the government directly contracted the Performance Workshop, a contemporary theater group co-founded by director Stan Lai (賴聲川), to take charge of the Dreamers project. The Performance Workshop then tendered out various parts of the project in limited bids.

The DPP suspected the musical was divided into 13 bids, of which six were restricted bids worth NT$180 million, to evade the requirements of the Public Procurement Act (政府採購法).

Huang said that while the Government Procurement Act regulates government procurement and other related practices, cultural authorities have the right to open limited bids for performances or other cultural and artistic projects. Therefore, the council did not violate the law by not holding an open tender for the production, Huang said.

Prosecutors said their investigation concluded that neither Ma nor Wu gave concrete instructions to hire Lai to serve as the artistic director for the musical.

The NT$215 million budget for the project was decided upon by Sheng after he looked into other musical production projects produced domestically and internationally, Huang said.

Huang said although prosecutors believed government officials did not break any criminal laws in the case, the bidding process had some flaws, and the district prosecutors’ office would suggest the Executive Yuan look into officials’ executive responsibilities.

The Ministry of Culture, which was formerly the Council for Cultural Affairs, said it has begun a probe to determine whether any officials were guilty of administrative mistakes or negligence.

Sheng, who is now the president of a private business group, expressed relief at the prosecutors’ decision and said the closing of the case cleared his name.

He said that although he always knew he was innocent, the case has weighed him down like a big rock in the heart.

“Now the big rock has finally been removed,” said Sheng, who resigned as head of the council in November after he was accused of corruption in planning the musical.